I just shut my eyes.

The crying is getting closer.

Then why is it dark outside?

And it’s getting louder.

How long have I been asleep?

And louder.

Please leave me alone.

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. Roll on my side away from the doorway. I just need to sleep. Don’t want to think. Just want to drift back into the blackness of slumber and shut everything out.

“Ry? Ry?” Colton’s hand pushes gently on my shoulder. Ace’s cries hit a fever pitch.

“Yeah,” I murmur, eyes still closed, but my breasts tingle with the burn of milk coming in as my body reacts instinctively to the sound of my baby.

“Ace is hungry,” he says, pushing my shoulder again.

And even though he says the words and I can hear Ace cry, that innate instinct isn’t there. There’s cotton in my mouth. I can’t tell him no. I’m not sure that I want to either. But at the same time the only word I can use to describe how I feel is listless.

You’re just tired. You got an hour’s sleep when you really need twelve. Your body is sore, changing, working overtime to produce milk and heal, and is making you more groggy than ever.

That’s all.

“’Kay.” It’s all I say as I roll on my side and lift up my shirt on autopilot. My breasts ache they are so heavy with milk. Colton lies Ace down beside me in the middle of our bed as I guide my nipple into his mouth.

Ace latches on, and I wait for that feeling to consume me. The one I’ve gotten every other time we’ve connected like this in the most natural of actions. There’s usually this soothing calm that spreads throughout me, like endorphins on speed. And this time when Ace latches on, all I want to do is close my eyes and crawl back into sleep I desperately need.

“I’ll be right back,” Colton says, causing panic I don’t quite understand.

Don’t go! I shout the words in my head and yet my lips make no sound. My throat feels like it is slowly filling with sand. My chest feels tight. Sweat beads on my upper lip.

Get it together, Ry. It’s just your hormones. It’s the adjustment period. Mixed with exhaustion. And feeling like I don’t know what in the hell I’m doing even when I do.

Tomorrow will be better.

And the day after that even more.


“YOU WANT TO TELL Me what we’re doing here, son?”